Friday, December 28, 2012

I have been using a new medium that I have fallen in love with: Thermal Paper. My roommate discovered it by accident and it has revived my creativity!

Thermal paper is what receipts and faxes are printed on. I enjoy it because it is often unpredictable. It reminds me of when I used to paint with watercolor (my first love) because you cannot totally control it and have to let the medium to some extent take you away.

I use heat to create images, therefore there are endless ways to use it. I love what the use of heat represents, for example creating art using a cigarette versus a hair straightener have different connotations. I have some ideas I am playing around with in my head with the use of this medium.

For an example, here is a piece I recently finished using thermal paper.

City

11"x15"

Thermal paper, acrylic, wood panel

I have more in the works and I will be updating you as I finish them! Meanwhile, have there been any great mediums you have discovered lately?

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

He records one second a day every day in his life for a year. This video has an amazing mixture of quirky moments spliced in with the perfect amount of every day boring life. At the end it gets sad, as someone is in the ICU and the shots start repeating almost exactly the same in the hospital.

I love how it expresses all of the small moments in life, and then when it hits the ICU all the excitement and enjoyment freezes and it comes almost to a standstill. My favorite part of it is the audio, the one second clips of empty audio are comforting. It makes me think of sitting back and reminiscing about a year gone by.

The guy who made this video quit his advertising job and took a year off, which is the year in which he made this video. (That's why his life seems fairly exciting). He is also currently developing an app that would allow anyone to do this, which I think is an awesome idea.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

I was flipping through an old sketchbook today and the tiniest note "Ryan Larkin - Walking" brought back a memory. When I was in first year Visual Arts, in about 2006, one of my professors showed me this animation by Ryan Larkin.

This video, make in 1968, is one of the best animations I have ever seen. It captures fluidity of human motion so profoundly in so few brushstrokes. It expresses emotion through body language. It captures the movement of muscle and bone people are made of.

My professor told us the story of Ryan Larkin. A few years after making this and working with the Film Board of Canada he fell hard into drugs and alcohol and eventually became a pan handler and was forgotten.

Decades later he met Chris Landreth who made a film about him, Ryan. This brought him attention and in the 2000's he cleaned up and began working with animation again.

The tragic part of the story is that two years after I saw this for the first time I learned that before he had ever really finished anything Ryan Larkin passed away of lung cancer.

This story always lead me to wonder what paths take us where and why. He may have gone on to do so many amazing things and his path took him somewhere else. What is the deciding factor of all of these things? Many of us start out in the same places. It's good to remind ourselves to keep on a path worth travelling.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

I have finished a new piece, at last! I have been working on this one forever.

Fixation
Acrylic on canvas
3' x 4'

Finally I have done a reasonably sized piece here in Ottawa. It is something I would not be ashamed to show. The premise behind the piece is an expression of addiction. Addiction has many sides, this is an expression of the comfort of smoking for me. There is a dichotomy in my life between the hatred of how cigarettes are destroying me and my pure love of them. It is something I fight daily. Anyone with any addiction fights similar feelings.

I am making another painting right now. It is small, perhaps more a layout for a future bigger piece. I have been concentrating on the idea of addiction too much so I have decided to branching out a bit. I also want to do a body of work with people working service jobs and hopefully expressing the state of the economy, something I am very affected by right now.

Meanwhile I am trying to stay motivated despite working 60 hours a week. Hope you all find the time to do what you're passionate about as well!